Its too bad Storamin is gone, he would be a good source of info. From what I know a s+p 500 fund usually does fairly well thats not to say you can't loose money. They over history tend to perform pretty well and have low fees asociated since they dont really need to be managed. With anything don't expect results overnight. There are probably some other good options out there if you wanna start saving for retirement allready look into an IRA (compounding interest is a good friend to have). I dont really have any other advise at the moment, If i knew more about this and did some more of it myself I would have more to offer.